The End of the Beginning
by Marg Hammerman
Summary: Amid the events of Messiah Complex, Kurt is badly injured rescuing Logan. Will the healing process illuminate all the reasons they shouldn't be together, or all the reasons they should? Slash.
1. Prologue

**Quick Summary:** Amid Messiah Complex, Kurt is badly injured rescuing Logan. Will the healing process illuminate all the reasons they shouldn't be together, or all the reasons they should? Slash.

**Longer Summary:** This story is set in the comics universe. It takes place during the Messiah Complex event (around Uncanny X-Men #492; the beginning of the prologue is from X-Men #205). But you don't have to be familiar with Messiah Complex to read this; it's all fairly self-explanatory. The relevant basics are that Kurt gets shot and badly hurt amid the X-Men's attempt to rescue baby Hope. Logan's version of X-Force is also formed around this time. The only major chronology adjust is that I'm saying Kitty's still around at this time (ie. that it's just before she gets trapped in that big space bullet). Ending's a bit melancholy but no character deaths or anything—don't worry!

Review if you like; but most of all enjoy!

And remember to check out the sequel, _Give and Take_!

**Disclaimer #1:** I don't own the X-Men or make any money from writing about them.

**Disclaimer #2:** Even when I don't indicate it specifically, my characters are practicing safe sex—because condoms are heroic!

**Chapter 1: Prologue**

"Kurt!" Ororo yelled, voice barely audible over the chaos, including the crackling energy she summoned around her. "Get Logan out of there. We're leaving!"

"But if I leave you—"

"Go _now_! I will cover our retreat."

It took Kurt two teleports through the swarm of Marauder goons to find Logan. Once he located him, though, at the mercy of Malice and Regan Wyngarde, Kurt realized he could have just followed the reek of Logan's burning flesh.

Kurt teleported instantly to Logan's side, booting Malice and Wyngarde out of the action on his way.

"Rest easy, Logan. I'll get you out of here."

Logan was trying to tell him something, something about the baby, before Scalphunter's 9mm fluted hollowpoint bullet sliced through Kurt's shoulder and lodged there. Then all Kurt knew was pain, explosions of pain lighting up his skull a split second before he teleported himself and Logan, by instinct, as far away from danger as possible. Kurt was screaming as they materialized on a mountaintop of untouched white snow several miles away from the action and several feet above the ground. They landed hard, Logan stopping largely where he was while Kurt's greater momentum caused him to tumble several more feet down the slope, finally coming to a rough stop against a hard, frozen mound of ice and snow.

They both lay still where they fell for a long moment, stunned by their injuries and the sudden silence. Finally, Kurt used what seemed like his last ounce of bodily control to throw himself roughly onto his back. He fought vainly against his pain-saturated consciousness to either move or teleport, but nothing came; it felt like his mind had become separated from his body, trapped within an igloo of abstract, numbing pain.

"Logan I… I c-can't…"

It took Logan some time to even identify the sound of Kurt's voice, let alone what it was saying. His every synapse was on fire, as though he were burning to death from the inside. He squinted in the direction of Kurt's crumpled body, which was ten feet away though it might as well have been miles. In Logan's blurred vision Kurt's body was a vivid splotch of red, blue, and black on the pristine white snow; but the red was expanding.

"Kurt," he managed to growl, throat aching. "You need to… the bleeding…"

Kurt didn't move. What if he was already unconscious, what if…

"KURT!" Logan punctuated his cry by hurling a fistful of snow in Kurt's direction that hit him below the chin and exploded in his face.

Kurt groaned softly. Logan thought it might be the sweetest sound he'd ever heard.

"You alive, elf?"

"Ja…"

"You won't be if… Can you get your glove off?"

Kurt took a moment to gather himself and then pushed his body into a more upright position against the frozen mound at his back. His left arm seemed inoperable but he used his teeth to clumsily pull the glove off his right hand, pressing it into the hole in his left shoulder. The white was quickly washed out by red.

"Schiesse… Logan… I can't put… I…"

But Logan was already crawling across the seeming miles that separated them, numb to the point where he couldn't be sure he hadn't left whole limbs behind in the snow. He threw his body against the ice next to Kurt and started his raw, awkward fingers working at removing his other glove. Kurt uttered an involuntary grunt of pain, trying his best to help in the only way he could, which was to remain still and try not to let Logan know how much his clumsiness was hurting him. Logan pushed the glove into the red hole next to the other one and pressed Kurt's hand down under the weight of his forearm.

"Stay conscious," he growled. "Or I'll hurt you."

Kurt, struck by a wave of delirious humour, actually tried to laugh, though it came out as more of a broken sputtering of breath. "S-sure."

"What's… your mouth's bleeding. Are you…"

"I'm… my fang bit my…"

"Does it hurt?"

Kurt's dim eyes squinted open in involuntary disbelief. He realized his mistake quickly.

"_Fuck_ you," he groaned, face surrendering back into a controlled grimace of pain.

"If I got to make jokes to keep you alive…"

"Fuck."

"Right."

They exchanged weak smiles more by instinct than sight, Logan's eyes still bleary and Kurt's pinched shut. Then they lay there for a while in silence, Logan trying to synchronize his own swimming world to the rhythm of Kurt's heart beating out against his body, Kurt's soaked gloves, the snowbank…

"Logan."

"Mm?"

"What if…"

"No."

"But—"

"You're not gonna die."

"I—"

"Shut up."

Deep within his dimming consciousness, Kurt knew he'd never hated Logan more than at that moment, when there was so much he needed say and he didn't have the strength to fight for it. Idiot—how could Logan not realize it wasn't just himself he was worried about? But what Kurt didn't consider was how badly Logan needed to believe his own words.

Logan opened his eyes and realized he'd been unconscious. He groped desperately, frantically, for Kurt's vanished body. "Kurt? _Kurt?_"

"Logan."

It was Ororo.

"Where's Kurt?"

"He's on the plane. Can you walk?"


	2. A Morning After

**Chapter 2: A Morning After**

**Three Days Earlier…**

Logan blinked dispassionately at the early morning light streaming through the Venetian blinds. Thin, pale yellow bars were crawling across the room, from the hastily discarded piles of clothes littering the carpet up and over the edge of the bed to the rumpled white sheet tangled around the bottom halves of Logan and his companion. Staring into the dim light, trying not to think and wishing he could sleep, Logan struggled with warring emotions—namely, arousal and guilt, both associated with the warm naked body curled against his under the sheet.

Hoping to ease at least one of his mind's preoccupations, Logan ran his hand down his companion's naked back in a long, firm stroke.

Kurt groaned, less than pleased at being woken up.

"Unnn… What time is it?"

"Good morning to you too."

Kurt groaned again in response, rolling over onto his stomach and gripping the pillow under his head like a life preserver. Not to be deterred, Logan swept his hand through the dishevelled waves of Kurt's blue-black hair and down the back of his neck, following the subtle grain of his fur all the way to his lower back and then, to seal the deal, under the base of his limp tail before sweeping firmly downwards.

That secured Kurt's attention, though not the desired response.

"Hey!—" Kurt jerked his tail out of Logan's grip and rolled back over onto his side, facing him with a tired scowl. "I was barely in adequate shape for what we did last night, let alone to wake up after half the sleep I need for more. Not everyone has your healing factor."

Logan smiled coyly. "You might surprise yourself. And I'm usually pretty good at talking you into things."

Refusing to be baited, Kurt rolled away from Logan once more, pulling the sheet over his head and contracting into a loose ball, tail coiled protectively around his leg.

"I won't be talked into anything while I am asleep."

"Besides," he said after a moment. "I feel like a pet when you do that."

"But you like it."

Kurt didn't answer, which Logan chose to accept as a victory. His slid his body down next to Kurt's, brushing his rough face against the back of Kurt's neck through the sheet as he spooned him.

"You smell filthy."

"Danke," Kurt's muffled voice ironized.

"Like sex and—"

"If I'm offending your sensitive nostrils I could easily replace myself with a mouthful of brimstone."

"I don't think that'll be necessary."

"Then leave me alone and let me sleep."

Logan knew from experience that, with a little effort, he could probably still turn things around into something they'd both enjoy. But he wasn't in the mood. He'd been hoping for an easy lay, something to reaffirm the power of his physical connection with Kurt as protection against the guilt he felt about all the things he was keeping from him, things that, if revealed, might very well sever their connection forever. And while they still hadn't decided exactly what their relationship was, when Logan considered life without the possibility of reaching for Kurt in the morning after a night of passionate lovemaking, it didn't seem like life at all.

It had been going on for several months now. Twice, sometimes three times a week, they'd spend the night together, either at the mansion or wherever their missions happened to take them. It wasn't something they'd discussed with anyone, and no one had seemed suspicious, which either meant ignorance or nonchalance. Whatever the case, their semi-regularly dalliances continued without the interference or advice of their friends complicating things.

At first, Logan had little difficulty convincing himself it was a series of chance encounters; after all, it had happened before. Logan could still remember the first time, though it wasn't distinct; mostly, it blended into irrelevance because it had seemed so natural and borne so few consequences. He didn't remember, for instance, the specific context, the details that might have shed some light on why it happened that day, that time. All he remembered was that Kurt had walked him back to his quarters after a workout, and ended up inside. Logan had come up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder with a heavy intent he hadn't really analysed until after he noticed Kurt's scent change under it. Then he was sliding his hand down the front of Kurt's body, over the taught curves of his muscles beneath his sweat-damp latex uniform, like a package ripe for unwrapping. And then like a package demanding unwrapping.

Kurt had mostly allowed it that time, though the way he twisted his tail around Logan's inner thigh as he came with sputter of ecstasy should have alerted Logan that the idea had been brewing in both of them for a while, and that it wouldn't be a one-time occurrence.

Sure enough, there were other sporadic incidents over the years, inevitable, Logan had reasoned, amid all the stress and loneliness. Logan remembered most of those encounters, at least hazily. Out of everything, though, his most vivid memory was not the first time they had anal sex (Kurt pressed up against the locker room shower wall, Logan holding Kurt's hands above his head in one first and his cock in the other, Kurt's tail pulling him closer), or the first time they woke up together (three days after Mariko called off the wedding). Those memories were present, but vague—more like muscle memory. But the first time they kissed—that was different.

For that memory, Logan knew the context well. It was after his reunion with Kurt following the team's supposed death, when Kurt and Kitty, thinking themselves the only surviving X-Men, helped form the England-based superhero team Excalibur. Logan had already been back (or, from Kurt's perspective, "undead") for weeks, but during all that time, he hadn't contacted Kurt. As he was wont to do, Logan chose the hardest option; rather than pick up a phone, he met up with Kurt in Germany, where he was helping out his old circus with a monster problem.

Their meeting didn't exactly go smoothly. At first, it seemed like anger, especially on Kurt's end. But when Logan saw how hard Kurt was working to stay angry against a painfully obvious desire to forgive him, his heart broke a little, and he felt guiltier than he'd ever meant to. It was at the end of their painful mission there, bag packed and resting at his feet, that Logan reached up for Kurt's image-inducer-disguised face and pulled it down toward his. There, under the sputtering orange light of a deserted motel hallway with red-patterned wallpaper, Logan tasted Kurt for three long, deep seconds before releasing him, turning blindly away from the unreadable emotions on his stranger's face, picking up his bag, and leaving. The next time they met in person, Kurt was studying to become a priest.

So: it had happened before. But the assertion that it was all a series of chance encounters was becoming increasingly impossible to support. Sex with Kurt wasn't quite routine, but it was becoming a habit, which Logan knew because he was experiencing symptoms of addiction, the increasingly few nights he spent alone becoming more and more crowded with memories of his nights with Kurt. He found himself craving the long, firm softness of Kurt's body pressed against his, sometimes waking up in the middle of the night missing Kurt's tail like an amputee with a phantom limb. He missed the passionate abandon of Kurt's face thrown forward or back in the ecstasy of orgasm, exaggerated to ridiculous proportions if Logan managed to run his hand against the grain of Kurt's fur at the back of his neck or grip the base of his tail at the point of climax. He found himself dwelling on little things, too, like holding Kurt from behind and dipping his middle finger into his bellybutton, a dark, soft crevice stretched taught, brain and body awash with emotion as he thought: this is where Kurt's body was attached to and within the body of a woman he'd once ludicrously thought he could love, realizing he was thankful, almost did love her, because she'd brought him Kurt.

The problem wasn't that Logan didn't trust Kurt, but rather that he couldn't. In theory, Logan believed in X-Force's necessity and secrecy precisely because of Kurt: because he and others like him, the best and most persecuted of mutantkind, needed protecting now more than ever. Yet while Logan was more than willing to sacrifice his soul for Kurt, his body tended to complicate matters. If he was genuine about protecting Kurt, Logan knew he shouldn't be where he was, knowing that every increase in intimacy only ensured the totality of their inevitable estrangement. The true source of Logan's preoccupying guilt was that even as he kept secrets meant to protect Kurt, by loving him he was destined to hurt him as much as anything else ever could. Though Kurt had forgiven Logan for many horrible things in the past, forgiving a friend was very different than forgiving a lover. And as much as Logan wanted to believe that their relationship hadn't changed with the addition of semi-regular sex, he knew in all of his head, heart, and gut, that it simply wasn't true.

Suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling that he was crushing the blue velvet body in his arms, Logan disengaged his hold on Kurt and slipped out of bed, walking naked over to the side of the window to gaze out through the blinds at the building sunrise. Kurt, sensing something wrong in Logan's failure to push the issue of some early morning passion, crawled out from under the sheet, bleary golden eyes blinking tiredly.

"Logan? I'm sorry about… But I really am tired and I know it's been affecting my—"

"I know, I know. It's not… Don't worry about it."

Kurt pulled himself upright into a sitting position. "What's wrong?"

"Not something I can talk to you about."

"Can't, or won't?"

"Both."

There was a long minute of silence as Logan continued to show his back to the golden eyes he felt boring into him, demanding the acknowledgement he denied. He heard rather than saw Kurt leave the bed and begin to pull on his uniform.

"Where are you going?"

"Away," Kurt said bluntly. "I don't know. Back to my quarters to sleep until sunrise."

Logan turned halfway, just in time to see one of his favourite sights: Kurt slipping his tail effortlessly, magically through the hole in the seat of his uniform as he tugged the unstable molecule latex up over his narrow indigo hips.

"Don't go."

"I don't want to fuck and you don't want to talk," said Kurt, pushing his hands through his sleeves. "What good would my staying be?"

"Stay. Go back to sleep. I'm leaving anyway." Logan began to gather the scattered pieces of his own uniform up off the floor.

"Oh?" Kurt was twisting his fist into one of his white gloves, arm raised as he pulled the fabric down his forearm. His jumpsuit was still unzipped to just below his navel. "And where are you off to at this hour? Wait, let me guess—you can't tell me."

Logan gritted his teeth as he jammed his feet into his boots. In the past, Kurt's acceptance of Logan's secrecy had been one of the tenants of their deep friendship. His new tendency to challenge it proved more effectively than anything else how much things had changed.

What Logan didn't know, however, was how much Kurt also hated the sound of his own voice reciting such lines, so much like the girlfriends whose incomprehensibility Kurt and Logan had always commiserated about as friends. Yet sounding like a neglected wife, Kurt knew, was nowhere near as bad as the pain of feeling like one. Not for the first time, he hated Logan for making him weigh such humiliating options. But he hated himself more for knowing that he, too, desperately wanted to lose his uncertainty in sex. More than anything, he wanted Logan to peel the latex back off his body and stroke him to climax under his warm, firm hands.

As he always did when trying to convince himself he wasn't in love with his best friend, Kurt thought back to their first kiss. He forced himself to remember as a physical sensation all the anger and hurt of that encounter. Especially, he forced himself to remember how trapped he'd been, and how surely Logan had known it—trapped by his image-induced face, by the risky public space, and especially by the fact that within hours there would be a whole continent of distance separating him from Logan. Kurt remembered like it was yesterday how, numb with over-feeling and unable to react, he had watched wordlessly, motionlessly, as Logan released his lips, pulled away, turned, picked up his bag and disappeared into the elevator. He might as well have been falling off the face of the earth. The next time they saw each other, Kurt was wearing a priest's collar.

Kurt finished dressing by wrenching his zipper decisively from his navel all the way up to his atom's apple, assuring himself that his favourite reminder of the all the myriad reasons why it would never work had steeled him against any similar outpourings of emotion in the present. He was reaching for the door when Logan, himself now fully clothed, grabbed his shoulder, stopping him.

"Wait." Logan listened for a moment, and then released Kurt's shoulder. "Okay."

Golden eyes met blue in a fatal flash of recognition. Kurt spoke tonelessly: "You don't want anyone to see me leaving your quarters."

A silent standoff began, Kurt's eyes burning with a fiery anger that met its match in Logan's practiced resolve. After a long, tense minute, the standoff ended with Kurt closing his eyes and slumping his shoulder wearily against the wall.

"What are we doing, Logan?" he asked, not demanding but rather exhausted, knowing full well the impossibility of an answer.

"I thought I was doing you a favour," Logan mumbled, staring sightlessly at the "X" on Kurt's chest. "I thought you'd want… that you _didn't_ want…"

"Logan," Kurt opened his eyes and drew Logan's in. "What _is_ this?"

Logan shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "It just… It is what it is."

"So why can't we walk out of this room together?"

Their second silence was tense with awkwardness rather than anger, eyes lowered and elusive on both sides. Once again, it was Kurt who spoke first.

"I'm not… I don't even know what I'd tell them. What would I say to Kitty or—God forbid—Scott, if one of them saw me stumbling out of your quarters at 5:30 in the morning, wearing the same uniform as yesterday and reeking of sex?" He uttered a small, humourless laugh. "What would they say to _me_?"

"Does it matter?"

"You were the one listening for footsteps," Kurt reminded him dryly.

Logan was just mustering the courage to reply when the door chime broke the silence like a gunshot. They both listened to a second buzz as Kurt, too, tried to find the courage to speak, lips forming tentative words that ultimately died in his throat. As the door buzzed a third time, Kurt was already backing away, about to do what they'd both known was inevitable since the first buzz, hesitating only to make a show of denying that knowledge. As Logan finally reached for the door handle, Kurt disappeared in a puff of smoke, his scent and substance long gone by the time Logan had fully opened the door to Scott Summers.

"Bad time?" asked Scott.

"'Course not. I was just leaving."

Logan glanced back once at his bed's still-rumpled sheets and then followed Scott into the hall, closing the door behind them.


	3. A Boxing Match

**Chapter 3: A Boxing Match**

Two days passed in which they barely saw one another. It wasn't difficult to arrange; they were both generally busy enough that all either one of them really needed to do not to see the other was not to go out of the way to arrange such a meeting. It was on the third day that Logan, bloodstained and weary and on his way to bed, hesitated for a long moment outside the door to Kurt's quarters. He settled for leaving him a note to see if he was free for a workout the following afternoon.

Kurt showed up five minutes late, just enough time to seem casual.

"Am I late?" he asked nonchalantly as he glided through the door.

"No," Logan lied, noticing, also casually, how nicely Kurt's black spandex workout pants hugged his ass, not to mention the rich shininess of his indigo fur against the whiteness of his tank top.

"You know you can just text me," said Kurt. "You don't have to leave mysterious crumpled notes under my door."

"I'm an old man," Logan replied. "Cut me some slack."

"So what did you have in mind?"

Logan threw him a pair of red boxing gloves. Kurt caught the gloves with a raised eyebrow.

"Boxing?" he asked. "Are you serious? My handsome face against your adamantium fists?"

Logan offered a lopsided, close-lipped smile. "Guess you'll have to keep me from hitting you, won't you?"

Kurt started putting on his gloves. "Powers or no powers?"

"This is _boxing_, Kurt."

"Um…."

"No powers."

"Do I get a mouth guard?"

Logan answered with an amused snort.

Kurt protested, "Do you have any idea how often my fangs cut my cheek when I get punched?"

Logan was already trying out his stance and making some test punches in the air. "You should be used to it then."

Kurt frowned as he flexed his own fists inside his gloves. "Okay. How do we do this? Are we doing rounds, or—"

"I think we'll know when to stop. You ready?"

Kurt rolled his shoulders and assumed a fight-ready stance. "As I'll ever be."

They tapped gloves and it began. For the first minute or so they mostly tested defences they already knew too well. Logan had better reflexes, was better at anticipating Kurt's attacks, but Kurt's body was at least as quick, and much more agile. Any fight had to favour Logan, but Kurt generally gave as well as he got, and he almost always learned something. The only reason his win ratio in his physical battles with Logan failed to improve was that Logan was always learning, too—especially about his opponents' weaknesses.

Once they got going they sparred loosely for a few minutes, each landing some soft hits, before taking their first breather.

"So…" Kurt took a swallow of water. "You've been spending a lot of time with Scott lately."

"Yup."

"You're really not going to tell me, are you?"

Logan shrugged as he wiped the sweat from his face. "Just M-day stuff. You know."

Ready to begin again, they resumed their stances and tapped gloves.

"I remember when I used to be a senior member around here," said Kurt.

"Maybe you shouldn't have ditched us for the UK way back when."

"Hm. I must be misremembering that."

"Must be."

Logan only narrowly avoided Kurt's sharp left. He grinned. "You'll have to do better than that."

"I will," Kurt assured him, a serious edge to his own smile.

"You talked to Bobby recently?" Logan asked.

"The other day I think. Why?"

"Suppose he caught you up on his soap opera."

"I heard he got his powers back…" Kurt offered.

"Sure."

Kurt blocked two quick jabs.

Logan said, "I'd like to say I don't know what he sees in her, but…"

Kurt's moment of distraction was all Logan needed to land a right that made Kurt stumble although it didn't hit cleanly. Logan gave him a moment to recover, and they once again tapped gloves to resume their bout.

"You really do look like her, y'know."

Kurt blocked Logan's hook easily. "Please. That angle will only work _once_."

"I'm just sayin'."

They fought for another minute and took their second break.

"Didn't think I could get to you that easily," said Logan, mopping his brow.

"You didn't," said Kurt, tightening the wrist strap on his glove.

"Uh huh."

They tapped gloves, and began again.

"I mean really," said Kurt. "My evil, manipulative, estranged mother? Don't you think that's a bit obvious?"

"Whatever works."

"It's not that I don't get it," Kurt continued. "She's like me but with tits. Or I am like her with a cock?"

"Doesn't matter. She can have both."

"That's true. I'm at a disadvantage having to settle for Laura."

Kurt landed a solid cut that glanced off Logan's cheekbone.

He looked down at Logan with a self-satisfied smirk as he recollected himself. "Taste of you own medicine, hm?"

Logan didn't wait for the customary glove tap before jumping back into the fight. Kurt, losing ground quickly against the unexpected ruthlessness of Logan's attack, bought himself some space with a kick to Logan's gut. Logan coughed, surprised, as he stepped back.

"This ain't MMA, elf."

"It's not the heavyweight championship, either."

Logan growled as he threw himself at Kurt again. They exchanged a quick series of furious punches that ended with them becoming locked up in each other's arms. Kurt tried to separate himself quickly, but Logan's arms were on the outside, and he stopped Kurt roughly in a vice-like grip. Kurt made another aborted effort to free himself but it was hopeless; Logan was much stronger and Kurt's hands were useless trapped inside his boxing gloves. He ceased struggling to escape and struggled instead to breathe against the weight of Logan's chest, every deep, quick breath rubbing his sweat-damp fur against the suddenly unpleasant roughness of his cotton tank top and the less unpleasant surface of Logan's warm skin. His tail lashed uselessly behind him in anxious frustration as Logan's lips brushed his atom's apple. If he'd ever had the ability to teleport, he'd forgotten it completely.

Sensing it was no longer necessary to subdue the narrow blue body that was still stiff but no longer struggled, Logan ran one of his gloved hands down Kurt's back, stopping under his butt cheek to squeeze their hips closer. Logan uttered a low groan of anticipation and desire as he felt the familiar pressure of Kurt's cock against his own.

"Stop, I—No." Kurt struggled successfully to freedom in the wake of Logan's lowered defences. "I don't need this," he all but panted, throwing off his gloves and swiping the back of his hand across his damp brow.

"But you want it," growled Logan. "You think I can't smell it on you? You think I can't _taste_ it?"

"That doesn't—" Kurt began angrily but forcibly silenced himself, shaking his head decisively as he turned away. He stopped walking when he reached the wall, one hand on his hip, the other buried in the wet waves of his blue-black hair. "We can't be having this conversation here. We can't be… _God_, what was I _thinking_…"

"Maybe you think too much," Logan grumbled.

Kurt turned to look at him, frowning. "And maybe you don't think enough."

Logan merely smirked laconically. "Look at you, all hot and bothered. You forget you're wearing spandex? Kinda undercuts your argument."

"Please tell me the _cameras_ aren't on, at least."

"No can do. They're always on. Security. You know that."

"Logan…"

"But I guess between the two of us we could probably break into the server…"

"We don't… I shouldn't have to do that. This shouldn't even—"

"Why?" Logan interrupted. "Because you don't like it or because you're worried what people will think? Which is it, choir boy?"

"_Fuck you_, Logan. You know this isn't about—"

"Isn't it?"

Kurt's eyes smouldered under his dark, furrowed brow. "I don't care that you're a _man_, Logan," he said. "I care that you're _you_."

Not so deep down, Logan had known as much. Yet it was still strange to hear Kurt say it. He paused, but not long enough to allow himself to analyse the emotion that caused it.

"And that's my fault," Logan said flatly.

"No," Kurt sighed, face softening as he dropped his eyes. "No, it's… It's no one's fault it just…"

"Happened?"

"Except…" Kurt's eyes rolled back up to meet Logan's. "It didn't 'just happen,' did it?"

Logan stared back at Kurt impassively.

Kurt finally broke their staring contest with a small, humourless laugh. "Honestly, you're like a cartoon cowboy, sometimes. How do you even—"

"It just happened, Kurt."

Now it was Kurt's turn not to let himself think. Luckily, he was distracted by Logan's sudden dangerous proximity, Logan having been slowly advancing on him as they talked. Kurt used his last available step backwards when he approached arm's reach.

"Stop," Kurt warned. "I'm serious."

Judging by Kurt's altered scent and the more obvious evidence of the much diminished bulge in his pants, Logan decided Kurt was telling the truth. "Okay."

"We need to talk. Logan, I can't—"

And that was when all of the windows in the gym exploded inwards, heralding the start of a brand new crisis. Their next conversation would take place in a pool of Kurt's blood.


	4. A Medical Bay

**Chapter 4: A Medical Bay**

**Two Weeks Later…**

_Professor Xavier was dead_. That fact kept turning over in Kurt's mind, even though—or maybe _because_—he couldn't quite figure out the response he should have to it. Certainly, part of him had a hard time believing it—not an unreasonable reaction, given the relative impermanence of death among the X-Men's ranks, not to mention the fact that his body was still missing. But another part of him knew better, knew that no matter what, it was the end of an era. The end of the era that had brought him to America out of the clutches of a Witzeldorf mob. The beginning of his friendship with Scott, Sean, Ororo, Jean, Peter... and Logan. Two of them already dead, and missed dearly. The rest of them—including himself—alive through the grace of miracles. And for what? Was the world any better, any safer, any more tolerant? Kurt still couldn't walk down a public street wearing his own face without risking a repeat of the mob scene that had brought Professor Xavier to his aid all those years ago. And now Professor Xavier was dead…

Suddenly desperate for any kind of movement, Kurt struggled painfully into a sitting position, stitches pulling across his injured left shoulder and through the too-slowly-knitting-together internal injuries across much of his upper body. He swung his sweatpant-clad legs over the side of the hospital bed, his tail—one of the only parts of his body that seemed blessedly pain-free—stretching itself out gratefully behind him before draping itself over his thigh. He flexed the muscles of his good arm and made a fist crying out to punch something, anything—a wall or a face or Sentinel. His left hand, though, fingers coiled limp and lifeless suspended in the sling hooked around his neck, might have belonged to a stranger—if there was any stranger on the planet with blue fur and two fingers.

The portion of the underground medical bay in which Kurt resided was, by now, deserted. Kurt knew that it had been a bustle of activity at some point, though his memory was hazy. It was only during the last two days that he'd been conscious for any significant length of time; before that, he'd only experienced moments of lucidity between dreams and dreaming-wakefulness, interrupted, of course, by a frenzied battle and the destruction of the mansion, events that had set back his healing process more than a little. He did remember at least one painkiller-drenched conversation with Kitty where he'd said more than he should have about how much she meant to him and how he either forgave her or was sorry for things from years ago that were too insignificant to matter to anyone who wasn't drenched in painkillers. (He wasn't entirely sure, though, whether Kitty had been present for it.) He also thought he remembered Logan's face, but those memories were even hazier, overlapping between the faraway past and various imagined, distant futures. Especially, though, his pain and drug-addled brain had conjured the trauma of the recent past, his numb body bleeding out on a snowy mountaintop, wondering whether the smell of charred flesh would be the last physical impression he'd have from Logan, and whether "shut up" were the last words.

Kurt almost sighed with relief when he heard the hissing sound of the automatic door, rescuing him from his thoughts.

"Good morning!" Hank McCoy's rich voice greeted as he entered the bay. "Glad to see you're up and about."

"About, anyway," Kurt offered.

"Well," said Hank, stopping next to Kurt's bed. "Good news—I'm kicking you out of here today."

"Thank _God_," said Kurt, looking dramatically skyward.

"Don't get too excited about escaping my company," Hank cautioned him. "You're probably going to be walking with a cane for another couple of weeks. You'll start to wish you were still lying down if you tear your stitches."

"I'll take the risk."

"And I'd like to think it goes without saying, but since this is _you_ we're talking about—no _teleporting_, either."

Kurt saluted sarcastically with his two operable fingers. "Jawohl."

Hank's leonine fact made its version of a frown. "Don't worry—I'd know you were lying even without the sass."

Kurt grinned. "Now who's anxious to get rid of who?"

"Here—let me see your arm."

Kurt unzipped his sweatshirt enough to let Hank's paw-like fingers find their way inside, feeling their way around the outside edge of his bandages.

"How does this feel?" asked Hank, pressing his thumb into a particular area of Kurt's collarbone.

"Fine," Kurt lied, smiling tightly.

Hank pushed down harder, just slightly, with the large flat of his palm. "And now?"

Kurt blinked back a rush of pain, eyes watering, smile buckling. "Great," he managed.

"That's what I thought." Hank released Kurt's body, frowning seriously as he regarded Kurt over the top of his glasses. "Honestly, Kurt, if this was the real world you would be in bed for at least another week after what you've been through."

"Then it's a good thing we don't live in the real world, ja?" Kurt offered, smile more genuine as his pain diminished.

Hank left Kurt's side and turned his attention to the medical scanner at the foot of the bed.

"I'm surprised Logan's not here," he said, eyes on the scanner.

Kurt hesitated almost imperceptibly. "Why?" he asked nonchalantly.

Hank made his way over to another bank of scanners, punching in numbers for some obscure doctor-ly purpose. "He's barely left your bedside in a week."

Kurt blinked, smile fully abandoned. "Oh. That's… I don't remember him being here."

"He came by when you were asleep. Seemed to make a point of it."

No longer sure how to cover his feelings, Kurt dropped his gaze to his dangling blue feet and tail.

Hank, who had been studying Kurt out of the corner of her eye while he worked, stopped what he was doing.

"Do you… want to talk about it?"

Kurt looked up at his friend. "No, but… Thanks for offering. Really."

"Are you…"

"I'm sure."

"Okay," Hank consented, returning at least half of his attention to his work. "Word to the wise, though—Scott Summers is much more suspicious than I am. And his girlfriend's a telepath."

Kurt's brow furrowed in a sudden flush of anger. "What is that supposed to—"

"I'm just…" Hank sighed, fingers once again pausing on the console. "I'm just saying that I hope you know what you're doing. Because when Scott asks you about it—and he _will_ ask you about it—you're going to need an answer."

"Or… he'll ask Logan," Kurt realized, anger dissipating into cold anxiety.

"Exactly."

There was a long silence.

"Logan's really been coming here?" Kurt said at last, all the emotion gone from his voice. "And just… What? Watching me sleep?"

"For hours."

Kurt stared uncomprehendingly into the middle distance. "Where did he even find the _time_?"

Hank looked up from the scanner, his face widening into a warm, relieved, feline smile, the quiet concern of Kurt's question spreading like a healing balm over all his doubts.

"What?" Kurt asked, noticing Hank's reaction.

"Nothing," Hank chucked. "It's just…"

Hank trailed off as the automatic door once again hissed open, admitting Kitty Pryde.

"How's the patient, Hank?"

"At least half himself," Kurt answered. "Are you my escort for this evening?"

"It's morning, Kurt."

"Well, yes, but it's the thought that counts."

"If you say so."

Observing the rumbling tension between Kurt's attempts at levity and Kitty's steadfast refusal to be baited, Hank decided to make his exit.

"Well, that's it for me. You're free to go, Kurt. Remember to take a pain pill whenever you feel like you need it, but not more than—"

"I know the drill, Henry. Thanks."

"Okay, then. I'll see you back here in 48 hours for a checkup."

Kurt nodded. "Thank you for everything, my friend."

"It's nothing I wouldn't do for anyone else."

"Still."

Hank hesitated only a moment longer before leaving Kurt alone with Kitty's frown.

"So," Kitty began deliberately after Hank left. "You seem like you're feeling better." There was very little warmth behind her words.

"I've been worse," said Kurt, eying her warily. "But what are you doing here? Is this just a visit, or…"

"Logan said he'd come get you," she said. "I just wanted to let you know."

"Oh. Okay, thanks."

Kitty dropped her eyes then, spending a long minute reading some invisible message in the floor tiles before she finally spoke.

"Kurt, can I…." she looked up, a new warmth subsuming her features to match her softened voice. "You'd tell me, wouldn't you, if there was something… well… something… going on… between you and Logan?"

Kurt wasn't quite sure whether he should look surprised at the question. He realized Logan's visits must have been quite a spectacle, and suddenly understood Hank's concern.

"I don't know what you mean by—"

"Yes, you do."

Kurt paused for a long moment, searching the face of one of his oldest, dearest friends, someone he'd sworn to protect and honour with his own life a thousand times within his mind and only slightly fewer times out loud while inebriated. Later, he'd try to make sense of his moment of indecision, when his heart and soul silently and brutally debated the pros and cons of telling Kitty the truth, all the while trying to ignore the larger question of why he felt the need to weigh the issue to begin with; he was not accustomed to keeping the truth from Kitty. But the only answer he'd ever arrive at wasn't one he felt especially ready to deal with: that there was something lingering at the edge of his consciousness that made him hesitate, a deeply buried memory of the very first time he'd smiled at her and she'd phased away, shrieking…

Finally, he said, "There's nothing going on between me and Logan, Kitty. Nothing."

It wasn't a whole lie. There was some part of him that believed what he said.

"Okay," said Kitty. She released a small breath and offered a game, close-lipped smile. "I'm sorry I even asked, I just… Anyway, forget about it."

Kurt felt the blood drain from his face realizing how implicitly she trusted him.

"Well," she said. "I've got to go. But… I'm glad you're feeling better. Even though you _look_ terrible."

"Thanks for that."

"Anytime. See you around? I'll text you."

"Sure."

Just before she reached the door, Kurt's voice rose in his throat almost against his will.

"Katzchen."

She turned, face trusting, expectant. "Yes?"

Kurt dropped his gaze. "Nothing."

The door opened for Kitty just in time for Logan's entrance.

"Hey squirt," he said. "How's the elf?"

"He looks terrible," said Kitty.

"Hm. I'd have to agree there. You heading out?"

"Yep. You still want me to drop by tomorrow, bring you some groceries?"

"Sounds like a date."

"Good, see you then."

The door slid shut behind her, and Kurt was left alone in the room with Logan, the first time he'd truly seen him since the last time he thought he would never see him again. Kurt's already uneasy stomach somersaulted a bit. In contrast to himself, Logan looked great: fresh, clean, and confidant in his tight white t-shirt and faded jeans, perennial cowboy boots clicking subtly on the tiles as he made his way over to Kurt's bedside. Kurt always loved seeing him that way; somehow, stripped of all pretense, he was even more himself, his uniqueness thrown into relief by the nondescript-ness of his presentation. It was something Kurt could identify with.

Kurt forced himself to smile, and tried to make it genuine. "Come to offer me a shoulder to lean on?" he asked cheerfully.

Logan snorted. "Something wrong with your cane?"

Kurt felt a wave of relief wash over him to see that Logan was playing along, also determined to minimize the awkwardness of their reunion. "I guess that's a 'no' then."

Trying to make a show of his health, Kurt pushed himself off the bed with his good arm and made a small jump to the floor. His ploy backfired, however as he stumbled badly and nearly fell, thrown off by the unexpected imbalance in his body.

"Dummy," Logan scoffed, hesitating only a moment before scooping Kurt up under his good shoulder.

"Danke," Kurt mumbled, both grateful and genuinely embarrassed as Logan helped him to lean against the wall and collect himself.

"You suck at being hurt," Logan observed dryly, handing Kurt his cane.

"Being _hurt_ sucks," said Kurt. "But I really am getting better."

"How do you feel?"

Kurt smiled wearily as he slouched against the wall. "Terrible. As I said—a big improvement."

"Hear you're cleared to check out today," said Logan, tone carefully noncommittal.

Kurt cocked an eyebrow. "And where have I to go? Half the mansion is destroyed. This is probably one of the only rooms left that actually has beds in it."

"Can you teleport?"

"I… Sure, I think so. Why?"

"Because I don't want to have to carry you all the way to my car."

"Oh? And where am I being driven to?"

"I'm renting a place. You can crash there until we get things sorted out."

Kurt looked slowly down and then up, assessing his own wounded body as a symptom of recent events. "Logan… Do you think things _are_ going to get sorted out?"

"You can stay with me anyway."

Kurt studied Logan's face, trying to trace out the hint of emotion that had seeped into his voice, but Logan's eyes flickered away quickly. Kurt gave up and made a long pan of the medical bay.

"Well," he said. "I don't want to stay _here_ any longer."

"So my company's better than an empty sickroom," quipped Logan. "Thanks. I 'preciate that."

"Maybe if Magneto visited more often…"

Logan affixed Kurt with an "I'm not amused" frown that only served to make his face widen into a smile.

"So where's your car?" he asked.

"The usual spot," said Logan. "But Kurt I was just—" Logan was standing in front of his 1969 Camaro Z28 and choking back brimstone before he finished his sentence. "—kidding."

Kurt sagged against him for a moment following the teleport, but he recovered fairly quickly as Logan helped him into the passenger's seat.

"Have I mentioned that you suck at being hurt?"

"Have _I_ mentioned that you make a great nurse?"

"No. And don't," advised Logan, starting the engine.

Kurt smiled contentedly as he sank back into the seat, flipping the hood of his sweatshirt up over his pointed ears as a token of discretion against the slim likelihood of anyone looking too closely through the tinted windows. As they got underway, he closed his eyes, savouring the antiseptic-free scent of freedom wafting in through Logan's cracked-open window. He wrapped his uninjured arm around his injured one and propped one blue foot up on the dash

"Do you mind?" said Logan, eyeing Kurt's foot.

"Not really," Kurt mumbled, dimly realizing that teleporting had taken a lot out of him.

"Elf?" Logan prompted after a moment. But he quickly saw it was no use. Kurt was fast asleep, toes still gripping the dash.

Logan watched Kurt intermittently as he drove. He was so still, so quiet, that he might have been dead if his expression weren't so serene, and if his body weren't afflicted with tiny twitches of dreaming consciousness. Logan knew from experience that Kurt's tail sometimes reacted to dreams, a fact that Kurt himself denied, convinced it was just another instance of Logan trying to turn him into an animal. But Logan knew better: Kurt was an animal, and always would be. It was what made it so easy for Logan to get under his skin—because he was an animal, too.

Watching Kurt sleep was something Logan had done a lot of lately. Not intentionally, though—not really. For the first few days after the end of the immediate crisis, Logan had stayed far away from the medical bay, not least of all because it was so crowed, and he didn't trust himself in Kurt's presence, not amid so many wandering eyes. Once the herd started to thin out, however, Logan found himself pulled by gravity into Kurt's orbit. He started coming regularly, helping Hank when he could. But mostly he came at night, when there was the least likelihood of company or Kurt waking up.

At first, Logan told himself he came because he liked Kurt better the way he was: quiet and harmless. For the first time, Logan could look at him freely without any awkwardness because Kurt couldn't look back, couldn't challenge his gaze or his thoughts or his insistence on Kurt's objective, heart-breaking beauty. But it didn't take long before he realized how wrong he'd been—how he missed Kurt's voice as much as his body, his laugh as much as his touch. And that's when he started sleeping in the medical bay in a chair next to Kurt's bed, actually hoping Kurt would wake up and find him there. Once, Logan did see Kurt open his eyes and look straight at him—or through him. Yet when Logan spoke Kurt's name he descended back into oblivion.

That same day Logan had had a not completely unexpected encounter on his way back to his quarters. Turning the first corner out of the medical bay, Logan had found himself looking up into the pulsing red strip of Scott Summers' visor.

"Summers," Logan had greeted.

"I know what's been going on, Logan," said Scott.

"Am I supposed to care?"

"Is it… mutual?"

Logan shrugged. "I guess."

Scott frowned. "That should be an easy question."

"Suit yourself," quipped Logan, making a definite move to storm past him and end the conversation. But Scott grabbed his shoulder roughly, stopping him.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Logan."

Logan's lip curled into a sneer that was a disguise for his real anxiety. "You afraid I might spill the beans on your little kill crew?"

"I think we both know Kurt's at the top of the 'doesn't need to know' list on this one."

"And you're afraid my mouth follows my cock, is that it?"

Scott released his shoulder and took a diffusive step backwards. "I'm _afraid_ of losing two of my most experienced X-Men in one fell swoop if this… If anything happens."

"I'm here for the long haul, Summers."

"And Kurt?"

"I'm not his keeper."

"So how _would_ you characterize your relationship?"

Logan's nostrils flared. It was the only manifestation of anger he permitted himself.

"We done here?"

"Just be _careful_, Logan."

"Right," Logan growled, and continued his exit.

"And Logan?" Scott called after him.

Logan paused without looking back.

"He's going to be… He's my friend, too, remember."

Logan had nodded once, and continued walking.


	5. A Home Off the Highway

**Chapter 5: A Home Off the Highway**

A little more than an hour of highway driving brought them to a nondescript apartment complex in the vicinity of Newark. Logan parked and leaned in close to Kurt's hood-concealed ear, whispering, "Wake up honey. We're at grandma's."

Kurt's eyes blinked open dreamily. "Wha... Was I asleep?"

"Only for about an hour," Logan informed him. "But it's okay. We're here."

"Wow," Kurt ironized, glancing out at the bleak, industrial expanse surrounding them. "You take me to the nicest places, you know that?"

"I take you to the _safest_ places," said Logan.

"Well now that's not even _remotely_ true…"

Logan didn't respond. He got out and went over to the passenger's side, opening the door and handing Kurt his image inducer.

"Here. Unless you feel up to another 'port."

"Maybe later," said Kurt, flipping his inducer to what he called his 'innocuous everyman' setting.

Logan led Kurt through the building to the elevator, and then up to the 12th floor. It was a laborious journey for both of them, with Kurt's every undisguisable hitched step feeling like a leak in Logan's air supply. Even behind the veil of the image inducer, the pain of seeing Kurt's usual dancerly grace so utterly destroyed was almost worse than seeing his actual injuries, the jagged hole in his shoulder barely held together with equally jagged sutures that Logan had seen several times as he'd assisted Hank in changing bandages while Kurt slept soundly, obviously, under the drip. Of course, it wasn't much better for Kurt, trying to ignore his own pain as he struggled to manage his body that felt as much like a stranger's as it currently looked, all the while acutely aware of Logan's gaze.

The apartment itself was as nondescript as the building that housed it, clean and well lit but deliberately minimalist, cloaked in a shroud of excessive normalcy.

"I like it," said Kurt, clicking off his inducer. "It reminds me of you."

Logan merely grunted in response to Kurt's joke. He was already heading to the kitchen for the only sustenance in it, which was the six pack of beer in the refrigerator.

Kurt massaged the outside edge of his left shoulder gingerly. "I need a shower. No, ten showers. I can smell sweat and hospital in my own fur. I can only imagine what I smell like to you."

"I've had worse," said Logan, popping his beer cap with the barely protruding tip of a claw.

"Thanks—it's kind of you to lie."

"Do you need help with—"

"No, no, I'll manage," Kurt said quickly. That he didn't want Logan assisting him in the shower was the day's first real sign of awkwardness. "But… Do I have clothes to change into afterwards?"

Logan knew that clothes were always an issue for Kurt, who hated suffering the occasionally necessary indignity and discomfort of imprisoning his tail inside a pair of borrowed pants. Logan gestured to a medium-sized cardboard box. "I brought what was left of your stuff from the mansion when we started cleaning up. There should be some stuff that doesn't smell too much like smoke."

The next few minutes after Kurt disappeared into the bathroom were punctuated with small crashes and muffled German swear words that proved Kurt really _did_ need help. Finally, though, Logan heard the water turn on in the shower. Trying to distract himself from the mental picture of warm rivulets of water snaking through Kurt's fur as he heard his body brake the stream, Logan, beer in hand, went to inspect the box of Kurt's personal effects he'd rescued from the destruction of the mansion. He picked up the small photo album that was sitting on top and took it with him over to the bed, where he sat down and began thumbing through the time-stained pages.

It was mostly a scattered affair, Kurt not being the type to fixate on the past. There were a few clippings in German from Kurt's time with the circus and a couple of pictures of him and Amanda at various places and years. There was also the obligatory early childhood photo, something Logan always found a bit disconcerting, having no memory of his own formative years. Yet for all Kurt or any of the other X-Men talked about growing up, or the past in general, they might as well have all been amnesiac.

And then a loose photo fell into Logan's lap that reminded him why the past was taboo. It was a picture of Logan and Kurt, with Jean squeezed tight between them. Jean and Kurt's smiles were as wide as their faces would permit as they both made "rabbit ears" gestures behind Logan's head. For his part, Logan looked uncharacteristically serene, smiling faintly with a faraway expression in his eyes, his arm hooked around Jean's waist outside the frame. Logan stuffed the photo back into the album and quickly turned the page.

Luckily, the next photo was one Logan had seen before, one of his favourites. It showed a teenaged Kurt—he was sixteen according to a time-worn scrawl on the yellow-stained border of the Polaroid print—posing at a trapeze in his black and red circus uniform, a variation of the same uniform he currently wore as an X-Man. One white-gloved hand held the trapeze, blurred behind a fuzz of unnecessary chalk. One foot was forward, balancing on its ball, and his tail made a single, large, scythe-like curve behind him. His young body was poised for action, but it was the expression on his face that sold it. His glowing yellow eyes, faded almost white in the grainy print, were beacons of confidant determination above a hint of a smile that either expressed joy or hid a tinge a fear. Either way, it was clear he was preparing to do something truly dangerous for the sake of the thrill and the audience.

Logan looked up from the album as Kurt emerged from the bathroom, limping, towel around his waist, another bunched about his shoulders as he used his good arm to squeeze excess moisture out of his hair and his glistening, damp fur. His carried his bandaged left arm bent stiffly close to his body, in the loose shape of his absent sling. He was still drying himself as he bent his head over Logan's shoulder to see the album.

His face ignited into a tired but genuine version of his singular grin. "Can you believe I was ever that young?"

"No," Logan lied. To him, everyone seemed young. Although he admitted silently to himself that there was something striking, or perhaps off-putting, about Kurt's teenaged self. The boy in the photograph was so much like the current Kurt but thinner, smaller—more transparent, perhaps. Not just physically: there was also something about his expression, the hope and innocence in the eyes of a young man with few greater worries than soaring from stunt to spectacular stunt.

Logan looked up at Kurt, forcing himself to honestly confront the worry the seemed to perpetually haunt his brow, the trained wariness and real and remembered pain etched in minute creases at the corners of his glowing eyes. Based on his parentage, Kurt was likely to be long-lived. Yet Logan had to admit Kurt had grown older since they'd first met, physically as well as mentally.

Kurt's smile fell as he absorbed Logan's gaze. He let the towel lie still around his neck.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

Logan closed the album and set it aside. He stood, putting a few steps of distance between himself and Kurt. After a moment's hesitation, Kurt filled the space, laying a tentative hand on Logan's shoulder.

"Logan."

Kurt didn't know what else to say, but the tone was enough. Logan turned back toward him, back toward his beloved and haunting face. He reached up, touched the crest of Kurt's eyebrow, thumb stroking the edge of his cheekbone, Kurt's fur still slightly damp under his fingers.

Kurt grabbed Logan's forearm as he bent subtly out from under his touch.

"Don't... Just... Talk to me. What's wrong?"

Logan dropped his arm and his eyes.

"Logan."

That tone again, that Logan had never been able to refuse.

"I wanna kiss you. That alright?"

"When you put it that way..."

"Fine," snapped Logan, in no mood for Kurt's deprecating humour.

Kurt sighed, recognizing his mistake. "I didn't—"

"How are you feeling?" Logan interrupted quickly. "I mean really."

"I'm okay," Kurt assured him. "Really. Apart from tearing pain across half my body every four hours when my painkillers wear off, I feel amazing."

Sensing his joke fall emptily on Logan's ears, Kurt cursed himself silently and made the decision to stop talking if at all possible. Tossing away the towel around his neck, he closed the distance between them. Holding his injured arm out of the way with his good one, his brushed his naked abdomen gently against Logan's belt buckle. Logan looked up as far as Kurt's bandages. Ever so gently, he laid his hand over Kurt's bandaged heart, remembering against his will his desperate efforts to contain its pulsing rhythm inside Kurt's body.

"I've been hurt before, Logan," Kurt reminded him softly.

"I can still smell it," Logan said. "I can still smell your blood under that bandage, dried and mixed with your fur. I've smelled it a hundred times."

"So what makes this different?"

Logan knew Kurt didn't really need to ask; but he also knew that he wanted him to answer, wanted him to say it, wanted the solidity of words beyond the muddiness of bodies.

"Kurt..." Logan's hand slid away from Kurt's bandages, around his body to the small of his back.

"Yes?" said Kurt, tail brushing against the back of Logan's calf.

Squeezing Kurt's abdomen against his, Logan leaned up and slowly, deliberately, kissed him, mouth open wide, tongue reaching deep. Inside his mouth he felt that little sigh Kurt always made as the first sign of his impending surrender. As they kissed, Kurt's good hand moved around Logan's hips, his tail tightening into a coil around Logan's ankle.

But something happened to Logan as he felt Kurt pulling him close. His chest seized, and he ended the kiss abruptly, face sliding past Kurt's lips to his cheek. He rubbed his rough, stubbly face against the velvet sleekness of Kurt's, all the time fighting a growing sense of dislocation, his blood coagulating cold and stiff inside his veins. He seized Kurt's body tighter against him, ignoring Kurt's small gasp of discomfort at the pressure on his wounds and the injured arm bent awkwardly between their bodies. Logan's nostrils flared against Kurt's cheek where he savoured the smell of him, the warm, welcome, alive smell of him.

"I can't lose you, elf."

Kurt's tried to respond but his voice caught in his throat, heart hammering madly in a sudden panic of emotion. The endorphins from the painkillers didn't help, making everything that wasn't painful hypersensitive. His skin felt freezing under his fur and a lump had formed in his throat that he wasn't sure he had the control to swallow back. He should have known better than to start anything in his condition, should have known he couldn't trust himself. He was trapped again within Logan's embrace, back in the motel hallway under the sputtering orange light. And here he'd thought that, for once, Logan had needed _his_ help. How could he have been so foolish…

Logan felt Kurt trying to pull away from him, and loosened his grip. He saw the deep conflict written across his features as their faces parted, watching Kurt's atom's apple jump noticeably as he swallowed hard. But Logan didn't let him retreat, touching his face, stroking, petting the un-bandaged portions of his neck and chest, hearing, feeling his heartbeat slow from panicked to racing under his hands. If Kurt couldn't understand his words he'd use his body to show him.

"Oh Logan…" Kurt's voice cracked on the name. Logan felt another rough swallow against his check where he buried his face into Kurt's neck behind his pointed ear, kissing, inhaling.

"What are we…"

"Tomorrow."

"But…"

"Tomorrow."

Kurt sighed brokenly, Logan's lips damp against his neck, right hand massaging the top of his spine, left stroking down over his ribs. Kurt's skin shivered under his fur, hot under Logan's hands and freezing everywhere else. He gasped at the exquisite discomfort of Logan's stubble cutting through him as his face slid down his body, over his chest, past his navel. His towel dropped around his ankles.

"Yes…"

Kurt threw his good arm behind him to grasp the bedframe against an impossible liquefaction of his knees. He would have grabbed it with his tail but it was beyond his control, always the first to go, jerking, curving its own stiff rhythm in concert with Logan's mouth. He breathed Logan's name like a desperate prayer.

But of course they hadn't talked about it the next day. Or ever.

Certainly, they didn't talk about it later that night, when Logan woke up to find Kurt curled into a fetal position on his side of the bed, crying softly into his pillow.

"I—I couldn't save you, Logan. I... I couldn't…"

Logan wrapped his stout arms around Kurt's trembling body and held him, Kurt's only operable one-of-a-kind hand gripping back tightly. It was all either of them could do.


	6. A Housewarming

**Chapter 6: A Housewarming**

Kitty was already in a lousy mood by the time she arrived at the twelfth floor of the New Jersey apartment complex time forgot, having had to carry two towering paper bags full of groceries up twelve flights of stairs due to a broken elevator. It wasn't so much the weight or the stairs that got to her, though; she was certainly in good enough shape to handle that. But getting through the heavy steel stairwell doors with her hands full was another question. Of course, the whole thing would be child's play if she didn't have to worry about someone seeing her use her phasing power; as it was, though, she'd already lost most of one carton of eggs to the struggle, just the latest casualty, she reasoned, to rocky human-mutant relations.

Even worse, when she finally reached the apartment, none of sounds she managed to make on the door elicited any kind of response from anyone inside. After several tries, Kitty reasoned it might be an emergency, so she looked both ways and phased through the door.

"Logan?" she called, dropping off the bags on the kitchen counter before venturing further into the apartment. "Kurt?"

Becoming seriously worried, Kitty hurried into the bedroom. And stopped. Because there were Kurt and Logan, thoroughly unconscious, wrapped in each other's arms under a thankfully discreet tangle of blankets. Logan was lying on his side with his face pillowed against Kurt's chest on the uninjured side, his arms wrapped around Kurt's shoulders under his neck and around his midsection. Kurt, too, had his one good arm around Logan's back, his two-fingered blue hand draped over Logan's shoulder. Kurt's tail spilled out from under the blankets to drape languidly over the side of the bed.

Kitty felt her anger dissolving but not into happiness. Instead, she felt an overwhelming hurt welling up inside of her, the hurt of betrayal but also something deeper that was a reaction to the tenderness of the scene, a tenderness that Kitty knew, knowing both men too well, could not possibly last.

Wherever Logan's hyper-senses had been hibernating, they seemed to return in that moment, his nose twitching before his eyes blinked quickly open, immediately darting across to Kitty. The rest of him remained still so as not to disturb Kurt.

Kitty forced her face into an angry frown, deciding it was the easiest way for all of them to handle the awkwardness of the situation.

"Good morning, Logan," she said tonelessly. "I brought those groceries you asked for."

Logan didn't respond immediately, instead turning his attention to Kurt. Kitty turned discreetly away, but couldn't help watching out of the corner of her eye as Logan tenderly stroked Kurt's abdomen as he whispered into his ear.

"Wake up, elf, we got company."

Kurt groaned softly, consciousness bringing a return of physical pain. His eyes opened wearily, golden depths pale with suffering. By that point, Logan had already extricated himself from the bed and begun throwing on a discarded pair of faded jeans. Kurt took note of Logan's departure hazily before turning his eyes to the familiar body standing at the foot of the bed, arms crossed over her chest, frowning severely.

"_Mein Gott_… Kitty…?"

"So you do remember me. I was starting to wonder, since I _did_ tell Logan I was dropping by. _And_ knock for a solid minute on the door. And at least one of you _does_ have super hearing."

"I'm gonna go unpack those groceries, squirt," said Logan. "You need me I'll be in the kitchen."

Kurt watched Logan's escape with incredulous disbelief before returning his gaze to Kitty's disapproving stare.

"If you're going to say it's not what it looks like…" she warned.

"And what, exactly, does it look like?"

Kurt's question actually gave Kitty pause. She thought, but didn't say, _It looks like love…_

"Maybe you should tell me," she said.

"Before I do anything," said Kurt, wincing as he sat up. "I need painkillers and… pants."

Kitty quickly located the sweatpants Kurt had been wearing the day before and tossed them at his head. "Here."

"Thanks. Painkillers are in the—"

"In the bathroom. Got it."

"And can you get me something to tie up my—"

"Yeah."

By the time Kitty had returned with the pills, a glass of water, and Kurt's sling, Kurt was wearing the sweatpants and sitting on the edge of the bed. He looked more than a little worse for wear, his fur dull and his eyes dim and murky, his right hand resting gingerly across the bandages on his left side as though he was afraid his body might disintegrate at any moment.

"You look awful," Kitty observed flatly, handing Kurt the pills and then the water.

"So you keep telling me," said Kurt, after he'd swallowed.

Kitty helped tie his arm into its sling and then sat down next to him, releasing a low, silent breath as her eyes ran over the ravages of wear on his face and body, especially his hollow cheeks and protruding ribs.

"You really look awful," she said again, this time sympathetically. "Seriously, when did you last eat?"

"I don't know… Yesterday, presumably."

"Geeze, Kurt, I know you suck at being hurt but do you even _want_ to get better?"

"Sorry. I've been having a weird…" he trailed off distractedly, staring blindly into the middle distance.

"What?" Kitty prompted gently.

Kurt blinked himself back to reality. "I was going to say 'I've been having a weird few weeks,' but then I realized it's been longer than that, and then I started wondering whether it's just that things have _always_ been weird."

"They have. But there are still degrees."

Kurt looked at her. "For what it's worth, I'm very, very sorry."

"That's a start," said Kitty. "Say it a thousand more times and maybe we can think about calling it even."

"I'm _sorry_."

"Nine hundred and ninety nine."

"Is it… because of what it is, or because…"

"You _lied_ to me, Kurt. I asked you a point blank question and you _lied_ to me. _Deliberately_."

Kurt dropped his gaze. His tail twitched distractedly where it draped over the edge of the bed.

"Who else knows?" asked Kitty. "Anyone?"

"I don't know," Kurt admitted wearily. "Henry, maybe. Having been largely unconscious for the last couple of weeks, I'm not really the authority on campus gossip."

They sat together in semi-awkward silence for a long moment, staring at each other's feet.

"So how long have you been…"

"A few months. Mostly."

"Mostly?"

"It's sort of been… Honestly, I don't want to… It's just…"

"Complicated?" Kitty offered.

"To put it mildly," Kurt agreed ruefully.

Another silence.

"I'm not angry," Kitty said at last. "I mean, I am—I'm angry that you lied to me. But really, I'm just… I was worried about you."

"Because of… which thing?"

"_Everything_."

"As I seem to have to remind everyone, I've been hurt before. We all have."

"Doesn't mean your friends stop worrying."

"There's something else. Tell me."

Kitty pushed a deep breath through her nostrils. "It's just… Scott had me go over the mission report, from when you got shot. And I just…" she trailed off, fists curling and uncurling against her thighs.

After a moment, she began again. "I've fought with you, trained with you, a lot. More, even, than some of the people who joined the X-Men before me. The only person who knows you better than me is probably… Well."

"And?" Kurt prompted.

"And it doesn't seem like the kind of mistake you'd usually make," Kitty continued, "leaving yourself exposed like that. I just… I know you better than that. Or, I _thought_ I did."

Kurt stared down at the loosely curled fist of his own hand. "Did you put that in your report?"

"No. I mean, I wasn't there—I can't be sure. I just…" she trailed off again before repeating pathetically, "I'm worried about you."

"You think I consciously put myself in harm's way?"

"No—not consciously. But… You've got to admit, you've been a bit off lately. For _a_ _few months_, even."

"And you're worried about me," Kurt echoed tonelessly.

"You know he'll hurt you," hissed Kitty, suddenly desperate. "You _know_ it."

"Ja. I know."

"So… what are you going to do?"

"What _can_ I do?"

Kitty had no answer to that. She touched his forearm, running her hand down to his, covering his two large fingers with her four smaller ones.

"Seriously," she said after a long moment, "you must be, like, the worst Catholic ever."

"Jokes," she amended quickly, feeling Kurt's body tense up under her touch.

"It's okay," said Kurt. "Unfortunately, most people would probably agree with you."

"Well now that we're _both_ uncomfortable…"

"I really am sorry, Kitty."

"I know."

"I never wanted—"

"I—"

"No, please, let me finish," Kurt pleaded, suddenly desperate to make up for everything he'd kept from her. "I wanted to say, it wasn't a complete lie, because I _wanted_ to believe it. Part of me wants to believe it still. But when I'm with him… I can't. It's the only time I feel… certain. Which just makes me want to be with him more."

"I know the feeling," Kitty lamented. "I mean, not with _Logan_, but… Well. You know."

Kurt smiled, just short of laughing. "Sure. I know."

"Ak! Forget it!" Kitty shoved him playfully in the shoulder as she released his hand and stood up. "I'm starving, and whatever Logan's cooking doesn't smell half poisonous."

"He's actually a pretty good cook."

"I'll believe it when I see it. Come on."

Kitty helped Kurt to his feet but as she moved to get him his cane he squeezed her hand firmly, stopping her. In a low voice that he hoped would be out of range of Logan's enhanced senses, he said, "Maybe... some risks are worth taking. Even when... maybe especially when..."

He didn't finish his sentence, but then, he didn't have to. Kitty pressed her body against his, and in that fleeting moment, Kurt understood the sometimes greater truth of wordlessness.

When they entered the kitchen, Logan looked up nervously—or as nervous as he was probably _capable_ of looking—from the stovetop where he was busy grilling a delicious-smelling omelette, his specialty, still, of course, shirtless. Despite himself, Kurt felt his face relaxing into a wide, easy smile.

"How's the elf doing, half-pint?"

"Half-dressed and full of painkillers," said Kitty.

"That's all any of us can hope for," Logan joked dryly, returning to his omelette.

As they ate, the sun, delayed by some early morning cloud-cover, punched its way in through the small, frosted window behind the sink, diluted rays glowing warmly on the faces of three old friends who'd been through too much not to appreciate the luxury of the quiet, everyday moments they so rarely got to share. Despite everything, or perhaps because of everything, they still had each other.

Kurt leaned back contentedly in his chair as he watched Logan and Kitty laughing and talking over their food and coffees. He watched Kitty steal a piece of toast off Logan's plate, though Logan thwarted her plan by pretending not to notice. The boring normalcy of the scene was striking. It wasn't just that it was comfortably similar to a hundred other past mornings; it was that, with a few visual tweaks, they could have been other people, normal people, in another apartment or another city, doing the same thing at that same moment. Yet they weren't other people; they were themselves, and nothing could ever change that. Though Kurt knew with a sudden, feverish certainty that he wouldn't want to-not for all the white picket fences in the world.

His shoulder still ached, and a pit of fear still gnawed at him somewhere deep inside his stomach. But right at that moment, things seemed…

"Elf?" Logan prompted, noticing the faraway expression on his face. "You okay?"

"Ja," Kurt assured him, smiling softly. "I'm fine."

END

Remember to check out the sequel, _Give and Take_!


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